Plog!

LRE

2008-06-26T05:00:31Z

Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls

2008-03-10T21:35:50Z

My inner 12-year-old girl is so jealous!

411 is a joke

2008-03-02T00:22:46Z

I just finished writing a strongly-worded email to the webmaster of a website called Bear411, a networking site for "bears." For those of you who are unfamiliar, the bear community is a sub-culture of gay guys who are big and burly, like yours truly. The cool thing about bears is that they're typically a pretty welcoming group, and with good reason. It's alienating enough to grow up gay in a heteronormative world. It sucks even more when you finally come out of the closet and seek out gay culture, only to find that it's just as alienating--even hostile--for guys who don't fit the trim and trimmed body type--so prominently exemplified in the gigantic banner on the side of the Saloon, in the pages of Lavender, on Logo, etc.--that's popular among the gay mainstream.

]]> The bear community, in my mind, has always been only nominally about being big and hairy; to me, it's a culture of the excluded, in which a variety of body types are celebrated and desired. On Bear Night at the Eagle, you're likely to see blackbears and musclebears (both self-explanatory), otters (skinnier hairy guys), chasers (non-bearish guys who think bears are hot), and cubs (younger bears), and just as many guys who don't fit any of these types. Guys who were fat little kids, afraid to take off their t-shirts in the public pool, go shirtless at Bear Night, and they get fawned over.

My problem with Bear411 is that its owner, some jerkoff named Greg, has decided to impose restrictions on who is and is not a bear. I know a couple of Asian American guys whose profiles were rejected; they were told they didn't fit the bear image. Then, I did a little googling on the matter; it seems this discrimination is systematic, and pretty well documented. I wrote an email to Greg, which basically said his rejection of "non-bear" profiles is not just offensive; it's totally counter to the inclusive spirit of the bear community. Turns out I'm late to the party, and there are, fortunately, plenty of other people who feel similarly about Greg and his lame-ass policies.

I've recently joined Bearciti.com, which has a much better interface, more young and progressive-seeming guys, and doesn't seem to have the same irksome rules about who's allowed. Seriously, how fucking lame is it to say one person can be a bear and someone else can't? It reminds me of this girl I knew in the mid-nineties, who would judge everyone based on whether or not they were "grunge" in her mind. That was lame too, but she was in eighth grade.

Photo Essay: boy, girl, faggot

2008-02-19T20:08:02Z

More Le Tigre - "F.Y.R."

2008-02-11T18:34:13Z

I just posted a Le Tigre video on the class blog, and it reminded me of this song, which is similar in sentiment to the Pozner article about people challenging the vitality of feminism. It's kind of hard to understand the lyrics, and they're really great, so I'm posting them here in the extended entry. Oh, and there's some swearing and stuff, so don't pump up the volume if you work at a Baptist nursing home, or whatever.

]]> Ten short years of progressive change
Fifty fuckin years of calling us names
Can we trade title nine for an end to hate crime?
RU-486 if we suck your fuckin dick?
One step forward, five steps back
One cool record in the year of rock-rap
Yeah we got all the power getting stabbed in the shower
And we got equal rights on ladies nite

Feminists we're calling you!
Please report to the front desk!
Let's name this phenomenon!
It's too dumb to bring us down!

F.Y.R. fifty years of ridicule
F.Y.R. take another picture

Mrs. Doubtfire on mother's day
On-the-job stalker for equal pay
Toss us a few new AIDS drugs
As national healthcare bites the dust
While you were on vacation
Black people didn't get reparations
You know these days no one's exploited
Sorry dude can't hear ya with my head in the toilet

Feminists we're calling you!
Please report to the front desk!
Let's name this phenomenon!
It's too dumb to bring us down!

F.Y.R. fifty years of ridicule
F.Y.R take another picture

You've really come a long way baby
Its you, not the world, thats totally crazy
Cuz we really rocked the fuckin vote
With election fraud in poor zip codes
Celebrate gay marriage in vermont
By enforcing those old sodomy laws
One step forward five steps back
We tell the truth they turn up the laugh track

Feminists we're calling you!
Please report to the front desk!
Let's name this phenomenon!
It's too dumb to bring us down!

misogynist obituary

2008-02-11T18:00:25Z

My grandma died a couple weeks ago, and there was something I found disturbing in her obituary. She had ten children: eight boys and two girls. Each of her sons, married or single, is listed just by his first name, since they all share my grandma's last name: "John, Tom, Peter, David, etc;" but the daughters, including my mom, are listed like this: "Carolyn (Dr. Timothy) Hogan." None of my uncles' spouses are even mentioned, but the obituary writer(s) apparently deemed it necessary to note my dad's first name--and, incidentally, the fact that he's a doctor--in order to legitimize my mom's surname. Why not just list her as "Carolyn Hogan"? If it's not worth pointing out that my uncles have wives, why mention out my mom's husband?

product placement

2008-02-11T17:51:25Z

I just had another thought about my consumption of media. I was watching "Project Runway" recently. I'd downloaded the episode, so there were no commercials, as such, but there was the usual product placement within the show: "Let's go to the Tressemmé hair salon;" "Send your models to the Loreál makeup room;" "We were given Blockbuster DVD players to watch clips of our models;" etc.

It occurred to me that these advertisements are aimed at viewers like me, who don't see regular commercials very often. Although the executives at NBC/Universal/EverythingElse undoubtedly get up in arms about illegal downloading, Blockbuster probably doesn't care how I watch the show; either way, I'll see their little advertisement.

Pozner article

2008-01-29T19:46:09Z

I just read Jennifer Pozner's "Big Lie" article. I was thinking of how cheeky--I never use that word, but "nervy" feels too complimentary--it is for mainstream culture to continually deem feminism dead. It seems like people, regardless of their education about/involvement in feminism are all too eager to throw in their two cents on the matter. It has a distinctly different tone from conversations about race relations, in which the uninitiated tend to hold their tongues for fear of being called racist. It seems feminism is more of a spectator sport. There are a number of reasons for this, but I think the main one is people's general familiarity with women and girls; the idea that knowing and respecting certain women (or even being a woman) acts as a shield against accusations of sexism or misogyny.

]]> The mainstream changes by absorbing and incorporating selected bits of the forward-thinking edge of culture. The mid-nineties gave us Kathleen Hanna and the Riot Grrrl movement, so the mainstream adopted Sarah MacLachlan and the Lilith Fair movement. I still think this is progress—it’s negotiated progress, though, and it frustrates me that it’s this homogenized version of feminism that the mainstream media tends to acknowledge when attempting to gauge the current state of the feminist movement.